Strava declares war on scrapers ahead of IPO

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The fitness and social running company Strava is taking a stand against aggressive AI scraping, a move that comes as the company prepares to go public. Strava's models, like those of many AI companies, require vast amounts of data to train on, leading some to disregard long-standing internet conventions like respecting robots.txt files. This has forced websites to restrict access to their data and, in some cases, strike licensing deals with AI companies.

To stop scraping, Strava is increasing security around its website and will now only allow authenticated users to view certain data. Previously, users could see details like public profiles and fitness club listings without logging in. The company is putting all that data behind authentication to protect it from unauthorized AI scraping.

On the API front, developers will now have to pay a flat $11.99 per month fee to access Strava's data, though the price may vary by geography. The company had previously offered a free, tiered access program, but it's now introducing a paid model. Strava's developer community has grown from 185,000 members last year to 241,000 this year, and the company plans to continue supporting them.

Strava also plans to add support for Model Context Protocol (MCP), an emerging standard that lets AI assistants and apps access external data in a structured way. The company will also retire some API endpoints to protect user data. Strava had already tightened API rules in 2024, banning its use for AI training and limiting third-party apps from displaying other users' data.

In an interview with TechCrunch, Strava CEO Michael Martin warned that unchecked AI scraping could be the death knell of the public internet. "AI companies are ruthlessly scraping public websites, given their endless need for training data, which is degrading site performance across the board," Martin said. Strava has refused overtures from leading AI labs seeking data licensing deals, including Perplexity, which allegedly routed its scraping through aggregator services to obscure its origin.

The timing of Strava's move is likely not coincidental, as the company confidentially filed for an IPO earlier this year. By protecting its data, Strava may be signaling data discipline to prospective investors. Unlike Reddit's 2024 crackdown on API access, which priced API access by the number of calls, Strava is betting a flat fee keeps the developer ecosystem intact.

"We want the users to feel that they own their data and feel comfortable with how we are controlling and securing it. But we want the developers to continue to flourish and grow," Martin said.